The Obama administration announced today that the nation’s first national manufacturing innovation institute will be in Youngstown.

The president said in March that he wanted to establish up to 15 such institutes in the country. And rather than wait for Congress to come up with the money, the president said he would pick one pilot project to lead the way.

The chief operating officer of the Youngstown Incubator, Barbara Ewing, says Youngstown won a very competitive process.

“We’re at the center of the tech belt so geographically we were proximate to both Cleveland and Pittsburgh and to the other partners, so there was an element of convenience. We have a great cross-section here between advance-materials expertise and ITcommercialization, and this grant has a specific commercialization component that requires that the project be used to commercialize new technologies and create new companies.”

The Youngstown Institute will focus on “additive manufacturing,” using the latest generation of 3-D printers to build products. Partners include Youngstown and Kent State universities and the University of Akron, as well as 40 companies that include Timken, Lubrizol, G-E, and Lockheed Martin.